COMPLETE! The Wasteland. A woman screams in the night. Spotlights flash on a pile of dust in the desolate patch of land that lay just beyond the tall crosses that picket the boundary of Encampment R-34. A group of curious students leave their bunkho...
MELL'S NOTES BOOK July 17, 2245 Entry #1 - Handwritten
"Take your milestone nonsense and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Three years between dust mounds is nothing! Nothing! This is hopeless! Hemaris is a desperate fool. They are just waiting, don't you see?! We are already dead!"
That's what Farolyn the Crone said between screams. I had to write it down first, so I wouldn't forget.
I know that Teacher Deirdre told the class not to use our Notes Book until after Commencement tomorrow, but I must comment on everything we just saw. Notes Books are meant for recording our disagreeables and most-unforgettables, and I won't let myself ever forget tonight. Rufus was right for always being afraid. We have finally witnessed how Elders are hiding the truth from Encampment R-34, and the reality of what lies beyond the picket boundary seems more terrifying than they allowed us to believe. Elder Farolyn was screaming tonight because she saw something in the wasteland. Something that got too close.
The boundary that rings the encampment is made up of iron-armored watchtowers, a metal link fence with razor wire, and rows of tall picket posts that each have a plank crossing over them near the top. Apparently, they are made of wood. It's hard to tell because they are dark and super old, and none of us have ever gotten close enough to see them clearly. Every year or so, the priests go past the fence to repair the pickets. I've heard Job Priest call them 'Crosses'. They are important for some reason. It's one of the many things we aren't allowed to know. He and Elder Priest commanded us last winter to start using our right hand to 'sign' one of those cross things on our chest and forehead whenever we see a bird flying over the picket boundary. None of us understand why, but it is supposed to make the birds fly away. Lane thinks the birds carry the virus. Maybe it will make sense by tomorrow afternoon. Commencement day is when we can finally ask any question we want. The ten of us finishing school have been looking forward to this week for years.
Right now I'm writing by moonlight during never-hour in the upper-level of Bunkhouse Girls. I'm trying to keep this a secret, but Edie knows I'm writing since we share a bed. Edie is very worried about job appointments tomorrow, so she is resting. In the bunk above, Lane and Roz are still discussing what we all saw. Felicity is staring at the ceiling from the share-cot on the floor, like usual. Roz is angry with Felicity. I am, too. If it weren't for her running out to help, I could have seen everything. We were undetectable. Who knows what will happen in the morning, now that we've been caught? No one under the Age of Commencement, that's twenty-three in years, is allowed to leave his or her bunkhouse during never-hour. I guess I should get to my most-unforgettable now, in case Teacher Deirdre does a room sweep and I lose my pencil, like the time Roz stole a grapefruit from Mess Hall.
It is quite strange to see marks on the paper I've pulped since a child. Roz has already wasted her first ten pages on drawing boy's body parts. Or, at least, what she thinks they look like. We all know that she is trying to shock us. You can't draw things you've never seen. She has yet to apply for a sanctioned sexual relationship. Writing that word for the first time is making me think of Bryne. Sweetest Bryne. Our application for sexual relations has been submitted, but we won't know the verdict until after Commencement. I saw him with his shirt off tonight. He has hair on his chest. I don't know if I was picturing that. I wonder if it's scratchy.
What am I doing? I only have a thousand pages for life! I must use them wisely, as Teacher Deirdre instructs.
R-34 is where I live. It is where I have always lived. There are other encampments nearby. Scavengers bring things back to us from R-32 sometimes. We trade between encampments. Usually, it's food supplies. A long time ago, I found a tin can with the letters H-103 stamped into the bottom lid. I buried the can in the soft dirt next to the water pump in Townsquare. I have yet to see anything else from an H-numbered encampment.
We all know that Scavers have the most dangerous job. They go beyond the safety of the picket boundary to search the wasteland for necessities. They leave with empty duffle bags and a string of garlic heads for protection. Bryne overheard one of the Elders explaining to a Trader at the Inventory Post why we grow garlic. The infected don't like to eat it. The smell is off-putting to them. Rufus thinks it's the only defense the uninfected have, though it seems to work on me and I know I'm not infected. I think I'm just sick of eating garlic. We grow so much that we wind up eating it on everything. Sometimes the Cookers boil the garlic and we eat it plain. I would hate to be a Scaver and have that disgusting, stinky vegetable around my neck all day. Rufus hopes he won't be pinned the job of Scaver tomorrow, but he almost certainly will. He's the fastest runner among us. Scavers have to be fast. They have to outrun the infected. If they even touch you out there, you'll never be allowed back inside the boundary. Roof wasn't thinking, if you ask me. The moment he realized he was the fastest, he should have slowed down. That's what Bryne and I had to do, in our own way. We knew from a young age what life-job would be pinned on us and decided to change our own destiny. Tomorrow, at Commencement, we'll learn if our plan failed. Shoot, I'm off topic again.
Farolyn's screams woke the whole encampment. Felicity heard them first. She was up late speaking her evening prayers to the printing of Elder Priest. I woke at the second scream.
"Did you hear that?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.
The bunk rustled above me. Lane leaned over the edge of the bed, her long red hair swaying down. "Someone is screaming? What's going on?"
We heard it again, only this time it was curdled and rising louder with each second, like thunder rolling across the sky.
"Is someone hurt?" Edie whispered beside me. She sat up slowly.
A pair of legs in faded striped linen swung down from the top bunk, and soon Roz was dropping onto the edge of Felicity's cot.
"Dammit, Rosaline. I am getting so tired of your —"
"EEAAAAAHHHHH!!!"
The five of us looked at one another in shock, bodies frozen, eyes darting. We had never heard anyone scream before. Not like this — not separated from laughter. Smirking heartlessly, Roz tugged back her chopped black hair and fastened it with a metal clip before slinking over to the bulkhead door. There, she gazed out the hazy viewport on the corridor outside our room.
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